The Utility Management Conference™ 2010

Technical Program

The Utility Management Conference™ planning committee focused on The Ten Attributes of Effectively Managed Water Sector Utilities and other key issues to create an exciting and useful program for this key event.

Please visit the links below for the most up to date technical session information.

Conference WorkshopsThis year in San Francisco, we are very pleased to be hosting five pre-conference workshops. Greater details are available for each event below, including learning objectives and coordinator.

While oriented towards utilities, this workshop will help all types of managers understand key concepts and proven strategies for preparing a comprehensive workforce plan and how to implement many of the components needed to address important workforce issues. Managers will hear from their peers who are in the forefront in these areas, and will receive valuable materials and tools they can use to begin to develop a systematic approach to workforce planning and the various components involved.

Utility customers contact their service providers for a variety of reasons, such as update account information, billing questions, and service and information requests. Obtaining customer feedback through service satisfaction surveys and analysis of this data provide useful information to the utility provider on fundamental needs and expectations of their customers. This presentation will discuss the specific survey data analysis techniques used to identify the strength and opportunities areas that have allowed American Water to develop a clearer understanding of what is most important to customers, identify and implement operating initiatives that will have a positive influence on these needs, measure performance and track progress. The workshop will also discuss how utility managers can incorporate this "intelligence" in the operation of their water and wastewater systems for sustainability and improved operating efficiency.

This workshop will present global benchmarking best practice, newly developed and soon to be published in collaboration between International Water Association (IWA) and AWWA. It covers the principles and definitions of benchmarking, a summary of "how to" benchmark, and provides US and international examples of best practice benchmarking, prepared by the authors of the manual. It also provides a case example of a utility, where both benchmarking and Effectively Managed Utility Framework has been applied and helps set the stage for future research and benchmarking by our industry. Finally, attendees will help assess the value of the new practices, as well as utility readiness and willingness to participate in benchmarking projects.

This work shop was designed and will be presented by the architects of the Effective Utility Management Initiative and the authors of the primer. The workshop will be a hands-on introduction to the Effective Utility Management concepts, primer, assessment and resources. Participants will leave the workshop with ideas and tools they can immediately put to work at their utility. After becoming familiar with the 10 attributes, participants will be able to focus conference attendance on sessions most relevant to their utility, adding value to their conference experience.

This session will begin with an overview of asset management and the industry standard elements of a typical asset management program. The different asset management implementation approaches will be also be described Case studies will be presented that demonstrate how the different approaches were used and discuss the lessons learned through each. The session will end with a round-table discussion where the participants will be split into 4 groups with 4 facilitators to discuss their opinions of the pros and cons of the different approaches and give their determination of which implementation method may fit best for their utility and why. The groups will then share their results and have a final open discussion.